Understanding how Stephen Harper is changing Canada is easy. Just listen closely to a national conversation that over the past five years has narrowed in content and sharpened in tone.

Understanding how Stephen Harper is changing Canada is easy. Just listen closely to a national conversation that over the past five years has narrowed in content and sharpened in tone.

Federal politicians no longer debate the broad questions of justice, climate change or foreign policy. Instead, they dispute the details of law and order, ethical oil and how long to extend the Afghan mission.

Winning arguments often begins with framing the subject. This Prime Minister is remarkably successful at both.

Harper took control of the country’s agenda as soon as he stepped into office. He named five priorities and set about achieving the ones voters remember — twice trimming the GST stands out — while muddying those he prefers they forget, most notably the fingers-crossed commitment to be more open, accountable and democratic.

His clarity of purpose has faded since then but, with the exception of a few moments when his opponents coalesced around a common cause, Harper has never surrendered the microphone. He consistently commands the high political ground by tilting policy discussions to ruling party advantage.

Wrong-footing rivals is the Prime Minister’s favourite dance step. Those who criticize building super-prisons, Canada’s laissez-faire environment record or Canada’s diminished international reputation are quickly forced to defend themselves against message track charges that they don’t share Conservative concerns about victims of crime, energy jobs or principled values.

Other examples abound. All are connected by two national capital realities. One is that Liberals, the one other party remotely capable of forming a government, either can’t conceive or articulate an alternative vision. The other is that the only time Harper’s opponents found the courage to unequivocally say “no” was during the 2008 Christmas constitutional crisis when the Prime Minister’s plan to end public funding for parties directly threatened their interests.

Blowing through such limp reeds is light work for a minority Prime Minister who more often than not is able to operate as if he won a majority. Just as significantly, it allows Conservatives to uncouple their actions from results.

Rarely has that disconnect been more obvious than in current pre-election positioning. Conservatives are taking a stand on corporate tax cuts while lunging a second time at party subsidies. They’re not documenting how more breaks for already lightly taxed big business will create jobs, stimulate productivity or boost international competitiveness. They’re not explaining why a feel-good promise to cut the purse strings to federal parties isn’t a slippery-slope step backwards to the bad old days of backroom bagmen, influence pedalling and tollgating federal contracts for political donations.

Missing, too, from the national dialogue are looming challenges that dwarf the importance of topics Conservatives prefer discussing. Off the table and out of mind are, among many things, are the future of universal health care, the complex transition from hewing wood and drawing water to a post-industrial economy, and Canada’s changing place in a rapidly evolving, helter-skelter world

Some prime ministers are moulded by their times, others shape them. Harper is squarely in both categories.

Recession and the compromises required to hold power in country less conservative than his ideology recalibrated Harper’s pragmatism. Determination and the patience to alter a country’s course, one incremental pin step at a time, are core characteristics of a Prime Minister who is changing Canada more fundamentally than friends or foes often recognize.

Measuring Harper’s five-year realignment of Canada demands no more than deconstructing what the country is — and isn’t — talking about.

James Travers' column appears Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

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